Kevin Roberts turning Lovemark into a cool US$430 million JC Penney contract

“Ideas are the currency of the future” is a quote by Kevin Roberts that I’ve been using for years on a few hundred of my business cards. Now, Kevin has just turned his idea of “Lovemark” into a cool US$430 million JC Penney contract for the Ideas Company Saatchi & Saatchi, where Kevin is its Worldwide CEO.

Since Kevin has promised to turn JC Penney into a “Lovemark”, I am very much looking forward to see how the master does the magical transformation. If I were a betting man, I am betting that JC Penney is going to get its money worth from the Kevin Roberts’ special treatment.

It should be noted that Saatchi & Saatchi is an ideas company and I suspect Kevin’s suggestions are not going to be restricted to what most people perceived as “advertising” alone. We will wait and see. By the way, Tom Peters is calling Kevin Roberts a cool friend and here is a very insightful interview of Kevin at Tom’s site.

On a different note, I was advising a startup company a few weeks ago and I told them I saw potential of turning the company into a “Lovemark” and not just a brand. What I didn’t realize was that JC Penney is now paying a cool US$430 million for that same advice also. Of course, for US$430 million, JC Penney gets Kevin Roberts and his team at Saatchi & Saatchi. For a small fraction of that fee, the companies that I advise will get me instead. :)

For more info about brands and Lovemarks, please refer to my previous entry “Brands & Lovemarks building” on August 19th, 2006.